De Angelis is 3-for-3 sweeping weekends in the series

Roman De Angelis continued his dominance of the field in IMSA's Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge Canada by Yokohama, sweeping both races this weekend from the pole.

Roman De Angelis continued his dominance of the field in IMSA's Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge Canada by Yokohama, sweeping both races this weekend from the pole as part of the Indy Toronto weekend on the streets of Toronto.

The race winner even took consistency to a new level in qualifying by posting an identical time of one minute, 12.966 seconds on back-to-back qualifying laps.

The first instance scored him the pole for Race 1 on Saturday, while the second scored him the pole for Race 2, for which the grid is set by either a driver’s second quickest qualifying lap or their fastest lap in Race 1, whichever is fastest.

On Sunday, the 18-year-old from Belle River, Ontario, registered flag-to-flag victory just as he did on Saturday. It was De Angelis’ third consecutive weekend sweep in GT3 Cup Challenge Canada and seventh consecutive victory through eight rounds of the season.

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Drivers faced mixed weather conditions for the first race of the doubleheader, while Sunday offered sunny skies and higher temperatures.

“The heat definitely plays a factor when you’re driving, especially when there’s not a lot going on around you,” said De Angelis. “It was kind of quiet out there today, so trying to keep focused with the heat. You’re sweating and we’re losing our energy pretty much the whole time. Just trying to keep focused is really difficult.”

With four rounds remaining in the 2019 season, De Angelis holds a strong lead in the GT3 Cup Challenge Canada championship. The next two rounds will take place at Road America in Wisconsin August 2-4, which will be the second and final joint event of the year with Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge USA by Yokohama.

“I’m looking forward to Road America. I think Montreal was really fun and a great event for us in general, so hopefully we can do the same thing we did there. It’s always fun when the Americans and the Canadians go at it together, especially being part of both, so I’m really looking forward to that.”

Finishing second on the podium in both races at Indy Toronto was Jeff Kingsley in the No. 16 Policaro Motorsport Porsche.

Third on the leaderboard and also earning the Yokohama Tire Hard Charger Award for gaining the most positions during the 45-minute race was Michael Di Meo, who started seventh on Sunday in the No. 96 Porsche.

“We started seventh and in a field where all the cars are so closely matched, it’s tough to even gain one position in a race, let alone we came back to third,” said Di Meo. “We just drove hard, never lost focus even though we hit the wall pretty good in the first couple laps. I thought the car was going to be pretty mangled because it felt like a hard hit. The guys came on the radio and just said to stay calm, let the race come to you and drive it, whatever it is, just drive it and keep going."